2006 Canadian New Media Award Programmer of the Year James Eberhardt chatted with us today about mobile devices and their different features and applications. One of the first things he demonstrated was the unlimited types of interfaces associated with mobile devices. When it comes to developing applications, mass acceptance could be very difficult, as not every device has every interface involved. Most have a D-Pad and a way of using text input, but certain devices have unique buttons or interfaces.
He then ran down different types of mobile applications: SMS, MMS, GPS, etc. James demonstrated a basic Flash Lite app which would create a text message to be sent to the weather network to find out the weather in a Canadian city, all through a GUI. That way you would not have to know the code of the city you are looking for. These types of apps are actually very handy, and I could see them not taking up much space and therefore very cheap and easy to download.
James demonstrated how easy it was to create a flash lite application using Device Central. Of course the problem is that in Canada the average cost is $1/mb $20/1mb which means anything involving video is completely out of the question for the average user. I had to laugh when he went through a series of icebreakers asking how many people do things such as texting or taking photos on their phone; and that nobody put up their hands for over half the questions (surfing the net, downloading video etc).
Another example was a photo uploader that would allow a user to place a photo taken on their phone immediately onto their flickr site. James also ran down the steps and technology needed to set up a SMS/MMS server. Apparently currently in Canada Rogers is the only way to do this (I find that hard to believe). But you can set up your own PC to be a server which would be great for testing.
The world of QR codes was revealed, a technology I had never heard of or see before. You take a photo of the code with your phone, and use an interpreter to decode it. Now this is neat. I would not be surprised if this takes off as a new trend. Compared to a modern day UPC code, this technology is a standard in Japan, where things such as newsprint ads, wine bottles, and train schedule information can all be accessed on your phone. There is also semapedia which allows anyone to create a code, print it off, and place it at a real world location. When a user loads the code on their mobile device, they are taken to the appropriate Wikipedia page. This is a great application of the technology: If you know what it is, you can use it. If not, it’s not intrusive and you can ignore it.
Overall I found the entire presentation confusing. James is obviously passionate about his work, as he has won awards, but he admitted repeatedly about being Jaded within the industry, and seemed to stress the point that the technology isn’t perfect and doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. I suppose the goal was to inspire us to come up with new ways to utilize the technology, but when half your presentation discusses the limitations and cost factors, it doesn’t seem to inspire an unemployed college student to spend countless amounts of money “exploring.”
Kudos to James for almost completely ignoring the iPhone and iTouch, two devices I am tired of hearing about.